Location: NJ for the moment, heading south next spring to be with my family.

Posts: 421

This may seem a bit ignorant on my part, but I am genuinely curious. Many many years ago, I began going to a Buddhist temple. When you get there early (as I usually do) you get fed. About 20 of us would get in the kitchen and cook. I remember the first time I went early and had breakfast, the very first thing I thought was "what DO the japanese eat for breakfast?!?" it had never dawned on me before. We eat 'ethnic' foods all the time, but it's almost exclusively dinner or supper. What an amazing treat that was. SO in china, what are the traditional breakfasts?

Seasoning: two tablespoons of oil, half a teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of sugar, 1 teaspoon of regular soya sauce, 1 large piece of ginger, 6 cloves of garlic, 4 spring onions (just the white part), 1 teaspoon of vinegar (Chinese vinegar preferably or white vinegar), 1 chilli (or to taste, if you like hot food. As your student is from Guiyang he probably will - Yunan Province is renowned for its hot food – then keep adding Chilli’s until he says ‘stop!’ Probably it is best to start with one the first time you cook it.)

Preparation: Chop the cow tripe into small pieces, bite sized and put in a wok to boil for twenty minutes, take out and drain. This removes the unpleasant smell. Chop the ginger and garlic into small pieces. Chop the onion.

Cooking: Heat Wok, put in oil, put in ginger, garlic, onion, (chilli if required) and stir-fry for around two minutes, put cow tripe in and stir-fry for five minutes. Put vinegar, soya sauce, water in, the water must cover the cow tripe. Cover the wok but leave a small steam vent, simmer until there is just a little water left. This will take a minimum of one hour until the tripe is tender (take a piece and try), you may need to add some water and give a quick stir along the way. Put in salt and sugar. Stir-fry the ingredients to meld for three minutes. Take out and place in serving dish. Now ready to eat. Hao chi.

Bite sized: Remember that Chinese food is served in dishes and placed in the center of the table. Everyone then uses chop-sticks to pick up the food and either eat it directly or put it into a small bowl. So meat and vegetables are usually cut into bite sized pieces.

Each individual dish is not all that troublesome to prepare, however most family meals would have 4 dishes and a large family meal between 8 – 12 dishes.

After a meal, particularly a large family meal, the women usually do the clearing away and washing up while the men drink tea. My husband really enjoys drinking tea and says that he does not want to get in the way of 5,000 years of tradition. Hmmmm

SixSix210: The first thing you have to know, is that North China food is based on wheat and South China food is based on rice.

So, in the North, the basic breakfast is usually Soya milk and yuo tiao (a long stick of light yeast bread deep-fried) which can be dipped into the milk.

In the Sough, the basic breakfast is 'zhou', congee, which is essentially rice and water boiled for a long time until it becomes gruel. You can put anything you like into the congee: meat, egg, dried fruits, nuts, veg's ..... anything you like.

Guang Dong and Guang Xi are the two places where yum cha originated. You eat yum cha in the morning from 6am till lunch time. If you are going to yum cha you usually skip breakfast.

Chef Mark: Australia has many ethnic foods to enjoy, but I have not been here long enought to experience many. I would like to tell you about China. In China we do not have many foods from other countries instead we have a variety of different regional foods.

The Chinese people say that the best food is cooked in Guangzhou. In the history of China, the Chefs of Guangzhou were regarded as the best in the country. Other famous regions are: Shanghai, Sandong, Zejaing, Hunan, Sichuan ...

Each region has its own distinctive food.

The major cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai, are starting to see other countries foods. However, in most cities the diversity is regional.

Seasoning: two tablespoons of oil, half a teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of sugar, 1 teaspoon of regular soya sauce, 1 large piece of ginger, 6 cloves of garlic, 4 spring onions (just the white part), 1 teaspoon of vinegar (Chinese vinegar preferably or white vinegar), 1 chilli (or to taste, if you like hot food. As your student is from Guiyang he probably will - Yunan Province is renowned for its hot food – then keep adding Chilli’s until he says ‘stop!’ Probably it is best to start with one the first time you cook it.)

Preparation: Chop the cow tripe into small pieces, bite sized and put in a wok to boil for twenty minutes, take out and drain. This removes the unpleasant smell. Chop the ginger and garlic into small pieces. Chop the onion.

Cooking: Heat Wok, put in oil, put in ginger, garlic, onion, (chilli if required) and stir-fry for around two minutes, put cow tripe in and stir-fry for five minutes. Put vinegar, soya sauce, water in, the water must cover the cow tripe. Cover the wok but leave a small steam vent, simmer until there is just a little water left. This will take a minimum of one hour until the tripe is tender (take a piece and try), you may need to add some water and give a quick stir along the way. Put in salt and sugar. Stir-fry the ingredients to meld for three minutes. Take out and place in serving dish. Now ready to eat. Hao chi.

Bite sized: Remember that Chinese food is served in dishes and placed in the center of the table. Everyone then uses chop-sticks to pick up the food and either eat it directly or put it into a small bowl. So meat and vegetables are usually cut into bite sized pieces.

Each individual dish is not all that troublesome to prepare, however most family meals would have 4 dishes and a large family meal between 8 – 12 dishes.

After a meal, particularly a large family meal, the women usually do the clearing away and washing up while the men drink tea. My husband really enjoys drinking tea and says that he does not want to get in the way of 5,000 years of tradition. Hmmmm

Enjoy

If you have any questions, please ask

I will be back to answer the other Q's, off the have breakfast!

Thanks! It looks like he wants to make it today. Do you have a way to post it in Chinese? If not, this will work fine. He just still relies a lot on his translator and the grammar doesn't usually translate correctly. I'll let you know how it goes.

But I will have to ask you to go to Kaixin, it is linked from my signature, where we have added a discussion section 'Do you have any Q's about Chinese Cooking'. You can post in Chinese. It is just for that case, where people want to ask questions in Chinese.

I will post his questions and how he went in my thread under Ethnic Foods in this forum.

I wish you well on the first attempt, tripe can be tricky.

Make sure you wash it well first, then that first boil is to get rid of any bad smell.

Oh yes, my husband said to point out -- I assume his computer is Chinese Scrip enabled. It should have a Chinese Operating System if he bought it from China. If not you can enable Chinese script in Windows. It is a bit cumbersome, but works quite well. Let me know if you have any problems.

We have Chinese script enabled because we have had 3 exchange students from China. No problems there. I'll let you know if he has questions when he's ready to cook. Thanks for the recipe and cooking tips!